The day before the night before Christmas...

The weather seems more like Novembers of old, with grey skies, drizzly, cold rain and a light mist over the distant hills. Much of the grass is still greenish and although Christmas is here, there is still no sign of snow. I fear Old Man Winter will be coming in like a lamb and leaving like a lion. Expect tons of snow and sub-zero temps for January through the end of March.

For those of you who have seen my Christmas tree, never fear, there are many lights on the shrub. The blinking lights were too random to catch all of them lighted at once, so I shot with a flash, giving the impression that there are no lights at all! I'll try some longer exposure times and see if I can duplicate some sort of time-lapse scenario.

After reading the 2nd half of Step 12 last night at my regular step meeting, I realized that I don't need to worry about the dating scene. I realize that I am going about it in the wrong fashion. I do not want to fall prey to the 'boy-meets-girl-on-AA-campus' syndrome, so I'll stick with a 'getting-to-know-you' social thing instead. Already there is someone I'd like to spend more time getting to know. She likes many of the same radio programs I enjoy, is amazingly brilliant, sensible, and imaginative, but unfortunately she is connected with many geographic points in my past. I'm not very comfortable with that, to be honest, although I should not worry about my fears regarding that scene. If we click, we click, and I shouldn't ignore the attraction. For now, we are only becoming friends.

After my decision to cancel my meeting with my father in The Big City I began to feel guilty, so I examined these feelings with my sponsor as well as my therapist. What I have discovered is a false feeling of obligation when it comes to my relationship to him. I was going to visit him because I felt that I should, or had to. In fact, I owe him nothing and am not obliged to do anything for or with him. I think this is the also the disappointment I felt last fall when I went to Steel City to visit him. I was there playing an uncomfortable role when actually there were better places to be in my mind.

Don't get me wrong, I love the guy, but I cannot play this game of familial charades any longer. It's emotionally unhealthy for me and dishonest to him. In many ways it is the same game his parents played with him, and the results were years of his anger and resentments towards his mother and a legacy inherited from his father. I don't want any of that.

On a lighter note, I have finished 'Buffy--Season 6' and already watched the first two episodes of Season 7. I can feel how the writers began to run out of ideas, and ultimately had to come back to the beginning and reclaim the thread. The stories are growing thin, true, but I do find Willow's struggles with her Magick Addiction hit close to home. I have to remember that I was pretty addicted to Buffy during my first year of sobriety and these final episodes were part of that year....hmmm, no coincidences.

I also find Dawn to be a vapid, self-centered, idiotic, little twit who should be sacrificed quickly to the nearest demon-at-hand before my head explodes. When HP was handing out brains, she missed the queue...


Johnnyboy